


The Girl in my Dreams

by Alliance (Xazz)



Series: Windsteppe Alliance [1]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:51:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19377070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Alliance





	The Girl in my Dreams

She was on her knees in the middle of a field. The grass waved and the clouds raced across the sky. Blood dripped out of her nose and down into her mouth turning her lips and tongue into wet rubies. Her eyes rolled in their sockets searching and never finding. Her wings were pulled in close, afraid of being taken away by the wind. He saw a hand that was and wasn’t his own reach out to her from his body. She focused on him and more blood spilled out of her mouth, dribbling down her chin and throat. Weakly she reached out for him too, her perfect green eyes had racing clouds across them, begging him to help her.

Najaïr woke with a hard gasp, thrashing in his nest of bamboo leaves, throwing it about. It woke everyone else up as he got his feet up under himself. “What? What’s wrong?” Bonten demanded with tired aggression, his tail spade coiling dangerously but his eyes were lidded.

Najaïr stood there, breathing hard and looked up at the sky. It was barely morning. The clouds racing across the sky were just starting the pinken. He saw one that was almost the shape of the Windsinger. “Just Najaïr, uuuhg,” Zephyer groaned and curled back up with Jeddie and Green.

“Najaïr?” her jerked when Kala touched her wing to his shoulder. “You alright?”

He stared at her, not understanding what he’d even seen. “No,” he said.

“Uhg. What else is new? Everyone go back to sleep,” Bonten resumed his sleeping ball state.

“You could stand to show some compassion for the Shard of the Windsinger,” Maral hissed but as usual everyone ignored her.

Najaïr turned to Kala and pressed against her chest, his wings sagging. She wrapped her wing around him with worry. He didn’t care Bonten acted so flippant. He knew the Spiral wasn’t really asleep. He knew he’d wake up later with him draped across his horns because Bonten was worried. “I dreamed about that strange not Beastclan girl again,” he said softly. “She was hurt. She needed my help. She was in so much pain,” he whimpered.

“It was just a dream,” Maral said, flittering over to the two of them to hover in place. “Dreams shouldn’t be taken with too much weight because you aren’t a Water dragon.”

“I wasn’t asking your opinion on my dreams,” Najaïr hissed back. He hated her rigid mindset. For someone who claimed to worship the Windsinger she certainly was unbending in what she accepted.

“What happened?” Kala asked him gently, rubbing her head against his comfortingly. He stumbled through explaining it. “That sounds awful.”

“She needs my help.”

“She’s not real.”

“I’ve had quite enough you telling me my dreams are meaningless, Maral,” Najaïr growled in a very Bonten way. He snatched her out of the air with a switch claw swipe, instantly wrapped her in a bubble of Wind magic and threw her away from the campsite. The Wind bubble would protect her from any fall damage and keep her from flying back to them. He was so tired of Maral’s hard and fast ironclad opinions on things.

“Najaïr!” Kala scolded him harshly.

“She is real,” Najaïr said. “She saw me. She needs my help,” he insisted.

“That doesn’t mean you can just toss Maral away-

Najaïr jerked out of Kala’s wing grasp. He went over to Boten and nosed in his sleeping nest. The feathered Spiral grumbled but eventually woke up and greeted Najaïr by constricting himself around his head. “I’m trying to get my beauty sleep here, kid. What do you want?” Najaïr didn’t answer because if he moved his jaw he’d stretch Bonten out and hurt him. Bonten realized that quickly and loosened himself.

“I need to find the girl in my dreams.”

“Sure. Great. Whatever. You’re a big kid, Najaïr. Do what you want. Uhg, you woke me up a second time to tell me this?”

“So you wouldn’t worry about me.”

Bonten soured. “I don’t worry about you.” Najaïr didn’t call his bluff. It’d do him no good. 

“Okay,” Najaïr said and left Bonten to sleep. He looked back at Kala and she had nothing for him. He shook out his wings before doing something that should have been impossible for dragons of his type: powered lift from a standing position. The land receded beneath him until the others were specks in the landscape. He turned towards the Steppe, pumped his wings twice and summoned a strong breeze to carry him into the rising sun.

—

He didn’t sleep until he found the spot. Or as close to the spot as he could find. The place of his dreams where there was nothing. Nothing but the land and the sky and not even Wind clans had dug into the hard, pitiless, ground here. He waited, watching the sun rise and fall twice and stayed awake even during the nights. He couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t miss her.

On the third day a figure appeared on the horizon. They were small but winged. At first he mistook them for a Wildclaw but they moved strangely. Then he realized… that was the shape from his dreams. He lurched to his feet and raced towards it across the dry plain, his claws kicking up dirt. He hadn’t gotten too close when the figure collapsed to their knees. 

He stopped running and immediately took flight, skimming across the top of the Steppe, his claws catching the grass. He checked his speed abruptly, his wings throwing wind across her face.

She looked up at him and it was just like his dreams. She was bleeding from the nose and it ran down her chin and starting to dribble down her throat. She looked like a centaur with two legs and wings like a dragon with curved horns that looked purposefully cut into like they’d once fit something over them. She looked at him and there was recognition. Her eyes mirrored the clouds above, racing overhead, dashed apart by the strong winds. “You,” she said weakly.

He stepped forward and put his wing up to shield her from the wind. Her eyes moved like the Wind, like his eyes did. “I found you,” he said softly and lowered his head down to her. He didn’t know what or who she was other than the girl he had dreams about. That was enough. That told him enough.

“And I found you,” she whispered and to his surprise burst into tears, her tears mixing with the blood. He curled his great body around her. “I found you. I found you. I found you,” she sobbed, a smile across her bloody face. She reached up and touched his face like he was a fragile vase. “I have been searching so long for you. I found you,” she touched his beard.

“Do… you know who I am?”

“My Charge. Who else is insignificant to me. My Charge. Finally. I have looked so long for you,” she cooed weakly and ran her fingers across his face. Where she touched the feathers immediately shed off his scales. He shook his head in confusion.

He curled around her protectively. “I… think you are mine too,” he told her quietly, like a secret, keeping her fragile body protected from the chill winds. He knew as soon as he said it it was true. This was his Charge. This was what he’d been dreaming of and why. “I am Najaïr, Shard of the Windsinger.”

“Layali, progenitor,” his eyes widened.

“Where is your clan?”

“Far away. I left them to find you.” She held his great head in both hands tenderly. “Oh I have been searching for you so long,” she was so relieved. “The Windsinger sent me to find you. Sent me to keep a piece of him safe.”

“You’re hurt,” he said and touched her back.

“Yes.”

“What happened? Why are you bleeding? Can I help you?” he worried over her.

“Bandits. They stole my horn caps that help me breathe,” she said.

“You have trouble breathing?”

“Yes. I need to breathe magical imbued air. But… I’m not in pain right now,” she stroked his cheek. “You just being so near- you just do it because you’re a Shard.” She gave a great sigh of relief. “I’m so glad I found you, Najaïr,” he liked the way she said his name.

“I am too,” he pressed his forehead against her small forehead. He closed his eyes and for the first time in a long time did not feel the insistant restlessness he did. The desire to move and travel and never stay still. Curled around Layali he felt peaceful. He licked her face, making her giggle as his great tongue cleaned her face of blood and tears with little effort.

They stayed like that until the sun grew high in the sky, she did not bleed, she did not complain of pain, “I should take you to go rest, eat. The Snakes are a ways off but we can fly.”

“I don’t think I am strong enough to fly,” she said, curled up around his head. She was covered in the feathers he’d rapidly molted when she touched him.

“Then I will carry you,” and he got up. The wind returned to their pocket of still air and tugged on layali’s hair. “Also… I’m sorry. What are you? I mean your form. It’s like nothing I’ve seen,” he said apologetically.

“Oh,” she looked down at herself. “It is called humi,” she looked back up. “Most of my clan looked like this. Or similar to this. It’s a bit more… dexterous to look like this,” she lifted one of his great claws. Or rather he let her. He did most of the lifting. “No claws,” she gave his claws a little wiggle. He smiled a dragon’s smile.

“Well you won’t be any more unwelcome to Bonten than I am.”

“Is that bad?” she released his claw.

“No. He’s just… moody.”

“Oh,” and she allowed him to pick up her small form. As he did more and more feathers fell away from his body, revealing a pattern he couldn’t even remember having. A series of pink rosettes on his yellow hide. He didn’t know what was happening or why but he hardly cared. He’d found the girl in his dreams and his Charge all in one. All was right in the world. He held her against himself securely but not too tightly.

“Not too tight?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. She smiled when he got into his back legs and with a single flap of his wings was airborne. She held tight to him as he started flying back to the Reedcliff Ascent where the Bamboo Snakes, and especially Bonten, were probably out of their mind in worry.


End file.
